Committed to using sport as a means for social inclusion, Nike have worked with the Dance Train-the-Trainer Project in South Africa since 2005. Working with Dance Front the aim of the project is to provide socially and economically excluded women access to dance classes which teach them to formalize dance.

Dance in Africa is part of the DNA; it’s performed for fitness and entertainment, so formalizing it and giving it structure is something unique. “Training these women how to teach dance is not only motivating and inspiring for them but it’s also empowering; helping them create a profession for themselves,” says Mamuso Makhanya of Nike South Africa (SA).

What started as an opportunity for women to play a friendly game of football may have instead launched a tradition. That tradition being an annual football tournament between Femme Plus, a French, all girls football team and Switchlife, an all girls Dutch team.

The hope is that each year the teams will play one another; one year in France the following in the Netherlands. 2007 saw the tradition begin in Dreux, a small town just outside of Paris.

The Nike-Changemakers Sport for a Better World Competition seeks leading innovations that use sport to improve community, accelerate development and drive social change.

This collaborative competition will identify innovative and transformative ideas and accelerate their development, innovation and potential for global impact.

For nine million refugee children, scoring a goal, making it to practice or helping a teammate won’t happen. But ninemillion.org is working to change that. They want to give refugee children a chance to play and they need your help.

Go to ninemillion.org to learn about what you can do to make a difference.

Around the world, half of all new HIV/AIDS cases are in young people under the age of 25. So we at Let Me Play have teamed up with MTV’s Staying Alive campaign to raise money for - and awareness of – the fight against HIV/AIDS.

So in honor of World AIDS Day - December 1 – Nike designed special shoes to auction off on NikeID, with proceeds going to benefit the Staying Alive Foundation.